Reply by David Craig

This was a friend of mine’s and accomplished woodworker’s first attempt at a cutting board in which he attempted to use a planer to flatten the board. The piece literally exploded. A planer is just not setup to handle the low angle that end grain requires in order to be flattened. If you ever try using a hand plane with a higher angle on end grain, you will feel how difficult it is to push and how much pressure you are exerting on it. Multiply that by a glue-up of multiple end grain pieces and you can quickly see how something like this can happen. That is why drum sanders are so popular.

-- There is little that is simple when it comes to making a simple box.